In this round of the console wars the stakes are high. This time, they are not just fighting each other; this time the players want to own the lounge room and everybody in it. And to do so they need to take it from the TV networks.
TV networks and the studios are fighting scared right now; and a scared opponent can be the most dangerous. The broadcast business model may be dead but the will to live is strong and the TV execs have the contacts and the contracts to corral the content for a while yet. And they have already started to be creative to meet the challenges - Warner Brothers and Bittorrent - who would have thought?
In a high stakes slug fest like this the outcome can sometimes turn on the tiniest detail which is overlooked by everybody - even the winner. And for this particular slugfest I think I know what it is.
Consoles are bought, installed and maintained by hardcore gamers. They are a demographic - a pretty broad one but still a subset of the total lounge room market. Other demographics have been targetted by console guys (see Playstation for DDR and the Eyetoy franchises, and Nintendo generally) but in these forays into new demographics there has always been a disconnect between the marketing and the demand, and between the demand and the buying power. Despite the best efforts the big question for the console guys has continued to be how to reach those other demographics.
Cue casual gaming: so far the biggest surprise in this round of the console wars. Long resigned to keeping septuagenarians' grey matter sparking as they wait for their next email, casual gaming is making a spectacular comeback. Microsoft has deployed ArcadeLive on the Xbox360 platform and frankly everybody involved has been amazed at the results.
Why is this? The answer is deceptively simple. There is no demographic for TV and there is no demographic for casual games.
Put it another way. Nearly everybody likes TV and nearly everybody like casual games. If anything is going to make some kids' mum pick up a game controller, it is going to be something like Tetris. And every kid with an Xbox360 likes Tetris. Presto! The two finally meet and they meet on the console guys' turf.
The timing couldn't be better either - blockbuster fatigue has hit the games business big time and everybody, players and developers, wants to have fun again. Casual games are fast and cheap to create. New business models are coming into play via online and they are turning out to be reliably profitable too. The niche-like, PC-based, casual games industry can now get to the lounge room.
What happens then? Well maybe the console is no longer a satanic black invertebrate designed to trip over the person who vacuums the room. Now it is a tool mum uses and likes. Now she might play some music through it, or a DVD. Now she might go into a different menu and find another game, or somebody to play online, or play a round with her daughter, or husband. Now she might talk about it with her friends and work out that they can play together too.
And suddenly the lounge room wars are over. And unless Sony really pulls its finger out it has been won by Microsoft.
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